Kathmandu, Nepal – two years ago, Magar’s husband joined the Russian army to fight in Ukraine, despite no military experience. He worked as a driver in Afghanistan and earned 50,000 Nepalese rupees (US $ 366) per month. Russia has promised him eight times more than that. When he called to tell Magar, she was shocked – but relieved by what would be a substantial income.
Now it’s missing.
He has not been in contact since November 2023. Magar, who had never gone to a city, left his village in the district of Baglung in western Nepal for Kathmandu to seek information. She hopes to go even further – in Moscow – to confirm if he is dead. If it is, it wants to perceive the compensation that the Russian government provides to families of people killed by serving in the army. Magar asked that only her last name be used for fear of losing her chance of compensation.
Magar says that she has made complaints to several government agencies – the Ministry of Consular Services, the Human Anti -Trafic office and the National Commission for Human Rights. None provided information on her husband.
“I want to know if he’s alive or dead,” she said.
Now she awaits her government approval to go by Russia by herself, but those responsible hold approval while they are trying to locate other Nepalese people who have disappeared in the conflict. Magar is one of the hundreds who say that their men have disappeared after going to fight for Russia in Ukraine. More than 200 Nepalese returned from the war, explains Leknath Gautam, acting director of the Department of Consular Services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but many others are lacking. The Ministry of Nepal Foreign Affairs has confirmed 70 deaths, more than 100 disappeared and at least 343 families who have officially asked for government to find their loved ones.
Nepal is based strongly on the shipments of workers’ funds abroad, and the desperate research of families highlights the profound failures of state responsibility and the system of protection against foreign work in the country.
“We cannot prevent them from getting their loved ones,” said Gautam. “It is the responsibility of the State to help them.”
The government says that it helps to search for Nepalese men, but criticism argues that it has not taken responsibility, letting vulnerable families venture abroad and seeking alone.
“How can women without instruction from distant regions not understand the language, culture or geography, search for their loved ones in Russia?” said Kritu Bhandari, leader of the opposition and member of the Communist Party of Nepal (unified socialist).
‘The survival was impossible’
Currently, 830 Nepalese citizens serve or have been killed as part of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, said Andriy Yusov, head of the press at the main information department in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Thirty-eight, he says, are listed as killed in combat, and nine are prisoners of war in Ukraine. Prisoners of war are dealt with in accordance with international humanitarian law, said an official from the Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Bhandari says that estimates from the Ukrainian government are far away. It manages a WhatsApp group of 3,000 Nepalese involved in the Russian army. Many have joined the Russian effort via Tiktok, where videos of happy Nepalese soldiers on the warfront attract men who want to become soldiers – and bring more money to the house than they thought. And there is another temptation: the promise of Russian citizenship for people from other countries that are bursting in the Russian army.
On May 16, during the peace talks, Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war, the greatest exchange of prisoners in the conflict.
Although the war began in 2022, when Russia has encroached on Ukrainian territory, the number of Nepalese joining the Russian army increased in 2023. Many, including retired soldiers, students and unemployed young people, went to Russia on visitors’ visas and were recruited in the army when they arrived. Bhandari says that some Nepalese returned home on leave but intend to return.
To slow down the exodus, the Nepalese government has stopped labor approvals for Russia in December 2023. But if the men are still said to be Dandu Raj Ghimire, spokesperson for the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security, the government cannot stop them.
International humanitarian law does not prohibit neighboring countries from legally recruiting soldiers. However, Raju Prasad Chapagai, president of the Responsibility Supervisory Committee, an organization of human rights, said: “If Russia needs Nepalese citizens in its army, it must diplomatically do it with Nepal.”
The spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal, Krishna Prasad Dhakal, said that the country has only signed such agreements with the United Kingdom and India.
“If (Nepalese citizens) must be sent safely in an area torn apart by the war for military service, the government must establish a bilateral agreement for its security and social security,” explains Anita Ghimire, director of social research at the Nepal Institute for Social and Environmental Research. “The use of civilians on the front line during the war in another country is not an opportunity, but a tragedy.”
Rural unemployment and economic necessity push Nepalese workers to accept positions abroad which are often poorly defined. The expert in migration of work, Keshab Basyal, says that the recruitment of Nepalese by Russia highlights the lack of jobs in Nepal.
“With limited access to education, health care and social security,” he says, “many are pushed to risk their lives for a better future.”
Lokesh Shahi, 36, a retired Nepalese army soldier, said he joined the Russian army in September 2023 by despair.
“There is no opportunity to win in Nepal,” he says. “I thought, one day, I had to die anyway, so I went to Russia.”
Traveling on a visa of visitors, he passed the medical examinations and was deployed in Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. He was then sent to Kharkiv with a 200 -member battalion. He was the only Nepalese to survive, he said.
“All I have seen are bombs, artillery and corpses,” he said. “It was the impression that survival was impossible.”
Shahi meticulously planned his escape. He contacted Ward’s office, a local government office in his village in Nepal, and asked for a false death certificate for his mother. Once he received the certificate, via WhatsApp, he asked for funeral leave.
Then, said Shahi, he walked 12 days through a forest to reach Luhansk, a city near the Russian border. There, with the help of the Nepal Embassy, he escaped. Back home, he gave a word to the families of his village that their sons, his comrades, had died in combat.
But Magar, and hundreds like her, still lack closure. Many went to Kathmandu to get help, and so far, 15 families have gone to Moscow, including seven women. Some have even praised apartments. They plan to stay as long as it takes.